Their violence. Their fire. Their beauty.
Their clenching, unclenching. Their bedlam.
Their silence.
Their toes squirming in their shoes. Their sobs. Their seventy-mile-an-hour fury.
Their eyes. Their glimmer. Their construction paper dreams.
Their insecurities. Their melanin.
Their rapture. Their forgiveness. Their twisted-up mouths.
Their screaming.
Their laughter. Their spoiled innocence. Their decent.
Their wilderness of wit. Their barbed future. Their ineloquence.
Their noise. Their stretching limbs.
Their vigor. Their hair spurting out of their scalps.
Their secrets echoing and singing through low-ceilinged halls. Their desire.
Their chipped orange fingernail polish. Their belly aches.
Their misspelled crayon messages. Their ghosts. Their audacity.
Their fear. Their braids. Their arms tight around each other.
Their torn jeans. Their longing.
Their possibility.
Their harpoon words. Their blood. Their bursting hearts.
Their walls. Their art.
Their endlessness.
Their airplane arms and their shrieking and their streaming outside into the yellow ache of a sinking sun.
Their rhythm. Their nonsense.
Their hands cupped around their mouths.
Their reverberation. Their chapped lips. Their love.

Them.

when day breaks and brazen stands the sun
as if to say, it is day, the storm has passed
once more
you lay in a pool of soft sand, a whisper of what once was
fists clenching and unclenching
silence so deafening you ache
it feels so unpleasant, this ease
comfort was not meant for you, where do you even place yourself in a scene meant for someone else?
you make suffering your home
the cold tiles a cornerstone
but the suffering has ended in spite of you
of all your pleas to stay in a race for survival
trotting on battered rubble-bound roads
and despite it all
you are safe and free
the sun lapses in providing warmth
but never stills
and neither have you
before now

and yet
happiness does not creep in, nor does it knock
nor barges or in wanders
you are left empty in a filled space
almost to the point of combustion
and this is how you shall stay
shivering, the rays hurling themselves at any surface besides you
fruitless, the suffering meant so very little besides all that you knew
empty, just as the space next to you

To the kid in the hallway telling his friend
"Maybe you need a **** whistle."
And to her response, a sarcastic
"Matt, **** jokes aren't funny."
You're **** right they aren't
Tell me, how is anyone forcing themself onto another person funny?
How are the I don't want tos when her "no" couldn't scream loud enough funny?
How are the ****** thighs and bruised hips funny?
How is the waking up in the middle of the night
How are the flashbacks and her wailing funny?
How is the seven year-old who had so much anxiety she'd tear her hair out
Or a sixteen year-old who kept eyeliner and a kitchen knife side by side in her purse funny?
It's about as funny as a slaughterhouse full of pigs taunting the other pigs
And telling them their approaching doomsday is amusing.
I dug my key into the palm of my hand like a knife when I heard this jeer
Clenching and unclenching a fist
Because I knew if I did not
That hand would go right through your faces.
You do not know the impact of your words
You see, for a survivor
Jokes about ****** assault are triggers.
They bring back every memory
Which becomes a stinging tear behind an eyeball
Fighting not to emerge from its home.
When I say something
Classically I am being "too sensitive"
Just as I was "too sensitive"
When he told me to get on top of him
And I said no
So much courage mustered up in a little body
I could have moved mountains that day
I could have been my own goddess
At seven years old
But he did not care
He was bigger than me
And he imposed that will onto my body
Reducing my childlike frame to the size of a fly
Being swatted by the paw of a lion.
I will not be silent
So when you tell a **** joke and I am in earshot
Do not expect me to laugh
Because there is nothing funny about a slaughterhouse.

I remember standing out on my front porch at exactly noon
I was wearing my pajamas and my hair was down,
Unwashed and wavy,
Framing my face and wrapping itself around my neck at the slightest hint of wind
I remember being nervous--
No, I take it back,
I wasn't nervous
I was filled with dread
I was barefoot out on the deck, holding a single plastic bag filled with your belongings
I gripped it loosely
Hoping that the breeze would blow it away
Hoping that the breeze would ******* away
In my other hand, I was holding a tall, full glass of tap water
And there was an apple in the chair beside me
Just in case you were hungry

I remember watching you make your way up my street
Your jeans were ***** and your long, dark brown hair was plastered to your face with sweat
Your cheeks were red
And your knuckles were white from clenching and unclenching your fist the whole way here
It must have been ninety degrees
But your flannel was neatly buttoned up all the way to your throat

I remember hearing your laboring breaths as you mounted the driveway
I remember reminiscing as I listened,
Thinking of all the times when your breath was hot and heavy on my neck
And how I could taste the sweat of your skin

I remember how your shoes beat a determined rhythm into the wooden boards of the stairs
I remember how far you stood from me
How I wiped at my eyes with the sleeves of my sweatshirt
And I could see your chest rising and falling through your flannel

I remember offering you the glass of water
And how you accepted it graciously
I remember telling you that I wished I could have provided refreshments the last time you were forced to make the inclined journey to my house with nothing but your two feet clad in cheap sneakers
I remember that wincing smile you gave me just before you put the rim of the glass to your lips
I remember watching you as you drained the cup,
Your head tilted back and your eyes closed

I remember you asking me if I was okay
And how that brought more tears to the surface than I had originally planned on showing you
I remember covering my mouth with one hand and shaking my head
I remember how you stepped forward and took me into your arms
I remember dropping the plastic bag and desperately wrapping my own arms around you
I remember pressing my body to yours as close and as tight as I could
For as long as I could
I remember feeling your heart beating against mine
And burying my face in the refuge of your neck,
Smelling your skin

I remember how you pulled away from me
And how I stared into your eyes,
Silently begging you to give me another chance
Silently telling you that I had changed
Because I had
But not in a way that would make you want to take me back
I remember watching you pick up the bag
And make fists with your hands as tears streamed down my face
I remember telling myself not to wipe them away
I remember wanting you to see them so you would always remember how much pain you had inflicted on my heart that day

I remember watching you give me a small, resigned smile
And watching you turn away towards the steps
I remember the word "wait" building up in my chest and clawing it's way up my throat and breaking out from between my lips
I remember how loud my voice sounded in the solemn silence
And how you flinched before turning back around to face me

I remember asking you for one last kiss
And how I noticed that your eyes were watering and your hands were shaking
I remember you coming back up those steps and taking my face in your hands and kissing me with all of the desperation I had been storing inside for the previous three days
I remember kissing you back, hard
And how you broke it off suddenly when I started to trace your lips with the tip of my tongue
I remember telling you that I was sorry
Even though the only thing I regretted was the fact that you had pulled away

I remember you telling me that it was okay and watching you wipe the last traces of my love off of your mouth with the back of your hand
I remember feeling as though someone had lit a match and had forced me to swallow it
I remember you reaching out and brushing the hair out of my eyes and tucking it behind my ears
I remember hearing you tell me goodbye even though it felt like there was so much left to say
I remember you walking back down the street and out of my life

Angry knots in the joints of my hands
My fists clenching and unclenching
I am not comfortable in this skin
Everything is so loud, so harsh to me,
The creak of the table, the chewing of gum
The tap tap tap of drumming fingers
I can feel lightning in my veins
Crackling and snapping, it is violent
I want to block everything out
I want it to blur at the edges of myself
And disappear somewhere quiet
Somewhere my skin isn't a cage
And my mind isn't an enemy
I need the lull of the sea on a hot day
And the embrace of the waves
As I sink.

funny to think I have been so caLm and together
amidst the greater untogetherness of my life
the laughing audience in my head cackling
at the laughable audience following my cracking

if it were set in sides of a scale
I'd be afeared to watch it balance

mayhap some creature of diRe
would erupt in a tangle of talons

that's what I'm afraid of after all,
that I am the pungent void that consumes
the eyes that glide low in the grass
and rise up with hate and ******
the teeth that bite with unclenching malevolence
bite biTe BITE YOUR WEAK ******* FLESH
AND SNAP YOUR WORTHLESS PILE OF BONES
SNAP
SNAP
SNAP
CRACKLE
CRACK
DON'T
YOU
EVER
COME
BaCK

HURt YOuR neGLiGeNT sOULs wITH thE PaIN
yOu alloWed to hIM to iNFLict On me...

but dEath still coils a leaf slowly to the ground
even for such thiNgs

Whose dreary face now becomes warmth – an ash turning
  into a single drop of water

I love and I have – and I know that when she looks
  she does not. Nothing moves the bird of her dawn but

her. Proletariats sing of steel in the night and I deaden
   within their homes. Whose dreary face now becomes

the steady light on the porch – a thigh, or a river, turning
   into a single gasp of song.

I love and I have – and I know that when she sings
   she does not. Her silence moves the moon deep within

its womb and annuls. Each moment in her shoes, she is absent,
   and I taste the pale death of her precise waist,

her sharp tongue having me curved when enough was said
  when empty was sure. I know whose face I am talking to,

but knows not what day has escaped me. The possible:
to bring her so small in my hand, and invent her this fate,

to be unclenching like water and virile like stone. I know
  the singular act of her likeness is born out of my lack:

there is a spring-clean image traipsing the water. I must chase
  where it streams, and its origins not my own.

The city borders us two as we are demanded by the daily:
  the smell of a home shoals me a satiny sob. Still the marvelous

sky, a knife, if not referring to me, the cut lily that is the Sun.
  Whose dreary face now becomes a store,

commerce, becomes the silver of hills, becomes the gray assault
  of an old cathedral, becomes the surety of a transaction

and then becomes wind chiming through cities. Becomes inquiry
  between I love and I have – becomes dearth and is proud.

   Nothing will stop the train arriving: when thirsty for a glimpse
  like mine a fountain or a singular wave from an opened window,

she passes – and does not look for me.

She speaks with her hands.

Long, elegant fingers - pulling, twisting, curling.

Soft and strong - an artist's hands; their uses unlimited.

Her hands clasped so intimately with my own - clenching and unclenching; she directs our motion.

Her back arches as I tighten my grip on her thighs and breath in her scent.

She tastes of honey and sunlight and something bitter that is so indefinably her, I never tire of it.

Her hands fist in the sheets and I am gone; yielding completely.



She tells me it's my lips.

She places kisses along my collar bone and trails them down towards my breast and stares up through her bangs to watch my lips.

She tells me there's a silence in my smile that contents her.



Parting my flesh her fingers etch truths into my skin. I am lost in the imagery of her words.

A chorus of sweet nonsense passes between us and I breath it in, allowing it to spur me towards completion.

I feel the harshness of her breath in my ribs and the trembling of her body as we ride out the waves.

She buries her face in my neck and smiles.

I am content, wrapped securely in the silence that creates her.


Our story, written in the sheets - tomorrows laundry.

this unruly night
is macadamized on the wall,

whit its bare-knuckled steel mangled
to a ferruginous glaze of rust.

the dismal kiss of
      cold on the unclenching fist of the dark
is irretrievable in the grass,

soon, glass-faces will break as my simian jaw
was once shattered by a scuffle in the twilight-bells
      of recess.

  it is like the night dances and in awe,
struck by some rude awakening, we sit forever
  emptied of beauties.

even the flesh rouses to startle the reared relation
   of calla – its hot-flush widespread of petals
  thought I am given always, an intone of forgetfulness.

   such pure lunges and gyrations – we all have
spaces to cross latching us in total placeness like
    black hooks impinging voices to a shriek,

  yet surely they go off wandering in sunsets
waning in the formless crepuscular, waiting the night
  to pour stringencies,
  
    small-breathed furies futile
        like arsenic.

I had that good good muscle ache take me down to easy town
Kind of night
3am rolled around all cranky and late but willing
That's the way these hills, these hour glass valleys
Keep time
I'm wearing red, hoping for a charge  
Raging bull going in for the slick slit ****
Right there.
Always tasting like a new adventure
Each touch feeling like home  
Blood rushes to flushed cheeks
Just... a... little... more
Gold coin electric pulse scatter on the cobble stone streets of my soul
I can feel each cold edge bounce  and echo
Ting Ting Ting
Body clenching and unclenching in tune
Mouths fused, wet with honey
Sweet with a sting
I cannot get enough of this running
*A hunger beyond thirst, for this love

Hot breath, fog on the window.
Hands on the glass frame
Holding on,
Pain, shame!
A silent tear slides down rounded cheek
Leaked down from a clear blue pool of
Innocence and sincerity and strength.
Questions flying throughc clouded mind,
Emotion held with in a sigh.
Smile brightly, laugh out loud.
Sleeves pulled down, wristbands wary
Waiting for the shock and dismay
For the rejection and harsh words.
Bring on the hurt...
Emotional pain is ten times worse
Than anything else.
Muscles tense and waiting,
Yearning for redemption.
Back tight, jaws clamped.
Eyes piercing against the bland mask
That hides all.
Lips ready to quiver or
Fake words of comforting empathy.
Voice waiting for its cue
To laugh and chase away any type of doubt.
Hands, clenching and unclenching,
Showing more emotion than anything.
Finger nails digging into palms
Leaving bright red crescent marks.
Feet sluggishly sliding from destination to destination.
Will it ever stop raining?
Will the sun ever shine?

I think that the hardest part of moving on is letting go
I used to believe that they were synonymous
boy, was I wrong
I've moved on plenty of times with plenty of people
but I never truly let go of him
I was afraid that if I loosened my grip and really let go,
I would never hold on to anyone again
(which I know now to be utterly false)
So, I again loved and lost and loved and lost
but now I am faced with the same familiar dilemma
of coordinating my demands with my extrinsic muscles
and unclenching my fists that I have so tightly latched onto you
(I just can't seem to let this one go)
-

slighted fingertips
withdrawing from a near-fatal embrace
how does it feel?
to brush precariously
at the edge of something
infinitely beautiful;
to find the void
greeting you instead.

curled at waist height
or tied
to the belt loops of jeans
or smushed into pockets,
balled up
waiting for  another
chance to extend again.

there in the throes of night
unclenching, reclenching fists lay,
wondering

will the next time will be different
and
how will it feel?

My mouth cracked
and bent emptied;
Pulled taut, my dam
against the light.

I still don’t know why,
but down the stairs
I went, with thirst
as my excuse
(although, I suppose
I was thirsty)

I left almost everything
upstairs in bed:
My arms and legs
wrapped warm under
misty sheets,
my teeth and torso
unclenching in sleep.

All I needed to see
was an eye and shivers—

An eye to see
Grandma sleep,

An eye to see
her husband’s paintings guard the room;

Shivers at those paintings
and knowing her from then on.

I'll peer through the flaxen strand
   of night

with your color that excites,

and think myself the blue pither of fire
  or a flummoxed stone left unturned.

it's not the rapture of a knowledgeable
   beast or the common grip
   of the eye's gift for unsparing detail.

it's the way the queen moves to all
    corners unclenching a fold of sidereal,

and then like a child with almond eyes
  spruced up, spritzed this morning's
  incandescent dye,

the lapping of strange tides revealing
    fish with dreams of brine

or that one moment when you had
   at first light, the hot flush of coming
      into, recognizing insatiable appetite,

  whistling its overdue intent and the detritus
        we try to hide when we had that virginal moment of    once and  never looking back
      at mirrors.

You feel stories are always unsolicited. You do not want them.
You want to feel the agony of the moment – all the more the electricity of it. A moment mottled by
rain this ordinary Thursday afternoon, or the dust eloping in the wind as we drove past 50 in the middle
of the night, you telling me I do not clean my car thoroughly, like that of a lady’s. You feel stories pose
no importance. Say, at the edge of our seats or at the jagged lip of a cliff – you would dare say jump,
alone, unwound, unfettered, resolute, obvious and available in truancy, out of incalculable fear of
existing – you took the plunge and claimed it’s all the same. Apertures frantic with dazed visions of
fondness. Vertical leap, cutting through the vague sky. Keeping some sense of freedom, yet we are not
as free as we think. You do not want a story. You do not buy its thrills. You chortle at the idea of lasting things because they have hands that are clenched and frenzied. They brand. They are territorial. You are no territory. You are an island, adrift somewhere, breathing on its own in between penumbras of want
and coasts of dread.  You feel characters do not change scripts. They change how you say things. Say, when he told you were needed, and I told you that you insist your forceful importance – you felt the need
to dab into the air and spire through the thickness of the dark, flamboyant with the color of freedom, you said, pale as a dove, I am free. Finally, the man might have left somewhere without you knowing it, and just as you are unclenching your wings, you project your pace into the sky like an unseen margin in the invisibility of all invisibilities – it is impossible to look away. You felt stories are not needed. You wanted experience. The end of a dull knife, the sound of a .45 shot into the sky as the police circle the filthy streets of Quezon City. You in your Chuck Taylors, running, looking for some tough nook to hide in – omen of another rain in sight. You remembered when you first bathed in rain and laughed a laugh so impossible with high notes and shrills – you laughed away like you were not coming back, because there is no need for a story. Now left to wondering in the vastness of the room before me, was it something
to be believed? A broken orchestra enters with its surrendering music and everything is ended. I fell asleep, still dreaming of running away.

A teardrop
     escapes
slowly meandering
  down the ***** of
her tear-soaked face

A sigh
     barely audible
hanging on her lips
  gets swept away by
a cold autumn wind

A stray
     lock of hair
dangling unnoticed
  as her eyes focus
beyond the horizon

A fist
     Unclenching
hangs by her side
  as anger fades and
resilience takes root

Your lips find my very weak spot
And I tingle
Does this make ashamed or should it? I do not know yet I cluster myself together to give you more
Then the blackness settles as the euphoria momentarily blinds us
Our other senses of the world suddenly unknown to us as only the clenching and unclenching of our bodies is what we know
Our knowledge suddenly becomes limited
And we can only speak words of "you" "I" and "love"
Bodies were not made to express this length of work and I am sure we indefinately destroyed ours, but we do not seem to mind as we push through
Hips connect and eyes roll as creatures from celtic and godly realms rejoice at the meeting of our minds,souls and bodies
They speak confused as to how such a connection can even be humanistic or even possible
You and I unaware of this attention, carry on and heave but for us it is not an unpleasant sound but one that let's us know the end is yet to come.

We, as poets

we fear the tangible

our fingers have lost the ability to

touch, to

feel

from

nights spent clutching our pens

from

unclenching our fists

from

peeling our

fingertips away from the ones we cannot afford to lose.

From pressing the familiar lines of our

palms together while looking

up past the cracked ceiling

up past the cloud that Darius calls

God

We, as poets, do not believe in a

heaven, for

Purgatory

is so sweet

The art of letting go is not as easy
as unclenching your fists
feeling the weight of burden slipping through your fingertips

The sweet release of not caring
is not something I’m familiar with or know
I carry this feeling inside of me
and for some reason I can’t let it go.

your head is always in front of mine
you are the view blocking the moon
i feel my knees unlocking, spine unclenching
to dive into the cycles of your hair

before
i was intimate with all
i had lovers in bean sprouts, molluscks, damp winds
my days were humid with things I could see

i woke this morning under a red pillow
an arm heavy just below rib cage
a leg strewn across unlocked knee caps
i decided not to gasp

rather, i did not know how to gasp
carbon, in every single element
somehow
i am screaming at you for hiding

how did i get here?

My mad waiting skull
craves your orange glow
like clockwork.

Toes clenching and unclenching,
grabbing pale carpet hair and thinking
about your nose;
it's striking prominence and form.

Warm skin!
your sultry delights.
I guess I'll take a cigarette,
one thing burning
between my lips
before the other.

It hurts so bad I forgot how to cry
I still smile through each day
Stumbling
Blind
To everything I feel
Blundering towards the unknown
Not a tear will fall
Sometimes
It just gets hard to see
Hard to push my numb legs to walk
And my tingling fingers to feel again
Blatantly lying to each face i see
A smile will make them forget,
My scream
Tear-filled eyes bubbling up
Clenching and unclenching fists
The inability to breath  
My lungs burn as I give up the ability
To fight back
I can't run I am stuck

Today, I'm going to try.
Try and renew a broken bond
between heart, mind and the
belief I have in myself.

Some days, I have so much
to offer the world: care, love,
compassion, hope and joy.
Other days, I sink into my
blankets & sheets, praying for
some sweet release.

My heart feels like it's clutched
between loathing and defeat, but
light keeps pouring through. It
desperately pleads for unclenching
to offer more of what I have inside me.

Feeling hopeless, lost and alone...
these feelings, I don't desire. I feel
like my lungs are filled with smoke:
elusive and toxic...but inescapably
dooming. But I seek the wind. The
clear, fresh breakage from the dark.

I seek hope and promise. I seek self
love and not shame. For the skin I'm in
is entirely my own. And I should be
happy for it and for me...because no
shallow appearance change will make
me a better person. Only drive, goal reaching and love will heal what I pray for.

Are you creeping up
on unclenching now
I want to ask
the world

and then it
clenches hard
hand shreds hand
all of us see it shocked

is this the curve of life
or do we cycle forth
diminishing dumb
too slowly to save

those peaceniks
tripindicular
to actual
blood
fell
hard
for our stretch
to this some poetic landscape
too much an island

Her hair like brown lace makes my soul gasp,
To my mind her words are like a honeyed kiss,
In euphoria my heart is drenched in this bliss,
Unclenching the iron hold of misery's grasp.

Our spirits embrace in hopes to forever entwine,
A love we've found as transparent as the softest glass,
That we nurture fondly with whispers of, "Do not pass,"
For we've found utopia in a, "Will you always please be mine?"

This is an affliction for which not even death can deter,
Because on the the other side I'll be there and you'll be near,
Facing the unknown with no knowledge of fear,
And the echos of my smile shall always say, "Forever her."